Transformers Nefarious #1 - IDW - Comic Book

At last we have arrived at the best part of the Transformers live action movie promotion cycle. The part where IDW gets to use these characters to tell a coherent story. Like Reign of Starscream was to the ’07 film, Nefarious is a comic “Sequel” to the plot free Revenge of the Fallen, and like Reign, Nefarious is already shaping up to surpass its source material.

The story so far focuses on Soundwave, still in orbit, still tapped into, well, everything. He’s pretty high on him self (no pun intended) and feels he needs an army to conquer the primitive people of earth like he needs robo-hemorrhoids. He’s going to do it the new fashioned way, by subverting our flow of information for his own diabolical ends. (Which explains cable news and Mattycollector.com.)

He’s concerned however by the reappearance of the supposedly dead Ravage, in Tales of the Fallen #5, which is sort of Nefarious #0. Recommended reading for this series.

Some of the best new characters were little more than background color in Revenge of the Fallen and Simon Furman has begun dusting them off and giving them personalities. Soundwave obviously is moving into the spotlight, Sidswipe, after a disappointing Tales outing, is leveraging the character developed that issue well. On top of that, Furman is already adding to the cast in all the right places.

One can but wonder how long Simon Furman will be able to resist busting out Movie Grimlock and/or Shockwave. (I hope not long.)

With new characters come new designs, a tall order in a universe full of comic un-friendly design concept. Carlos Magno steps up and delivers solid movie designs for some familiar faces. They probably wouldn’t translate back into the live action aesthetic of the movies, but they’re not meant to. They work here and that’s what counts.

There are quite a few compelling visual moments in this comic and Magno brings them to life superbly. The whole comic flows in a pleasing way.

This is an actual good comic. Not just “good for a movie comic”. This is a solid book, worth reading. There’s something to look forward to here.

Reviewer	Ender
Date	March 16th 2010
Score	(8 out of 10)
Reads	6620